


Moments in Multitudes

by iblankedonmyname



Series: Ids, Egos, Superegos [1]
Category: Farscape
Genre: Anal Sex, Blood Kink, Dubious Consent, F/M, M/M, Memory Exploration, Mind Rape, Mind palaces, No Outerspace, Non-Consensual, Only Earth, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22178152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iblankedonmyname/pseuds/iblankedonmyname
Summary: Harvey is free to explore untethered for a few hours and dives into John's memories. Gets caught in an undertow.
Relationships: John Crichton/Harvey (Farscape), John Crichton/Other(s)
Series: Ids, Egos, Superegos [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596439
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One of those times a bee stings your ass and you write a fanfic for a fandom that hasn’t existed for 15 years. I hadn’t watched Farscape until recently and it’s very good and there is simply not enough material to pour over now that the fandom is desolate. I hope some gravediggers uncover and treasure this. For some reason, it became longer than I thought it would be (much longer, and multi-storied, yikes). 
> 
> These three chapters happen during Self Inflicted Wounds Episode 3:3 and Episode 3:4. They are mostly to explore what could have happened between Harvey getting let out of the dumpster and being very grumpy to suddenly being really really enthused to see Crichton later in the double episode. I’ll give you a hint. *cough cough* It’s sex. But also waves and waves of snippets.
> 
> I also started writing this before finishing Season 4, so if it gets non-canon when the Earth episodes happen...well, oh well. I read John Crichton’s wiki, and that worked for me. If it doesn’t fit exactly, whoopsie.
> 
> Oh dear, what did I write? There are two more fics I'm working on. One is more smutty. One is much less smutty. Keep posted.  
> \--
> 
> "Did I tell you he could stop clocks? Well, you've heard the expression 'His face would stop a clock'? Well, Harvey can look at your clock and stop it. And you can go anywhere you like, with anyone you like, and stay as long as you like. And when you get back, not one minute will have ticked by. You see, science has overcome time and space. Well, Harvey has overcome not only time and space, but any objections." (Harvey, 1950)

John let him out of the dumpster without ceremony. The time he had spent locked in the dark was interminable. He expected that when he was let out again it’d either be through John’s hopefully soon-approaching death or some great vengeful urge. Instead, he was blipped into the back seat of some obscene yellow vehicle watching what appeared to be video footage. John was perched on the vehicle’s front holding a fascinating recorder from an unknown alien race.

Scorpius, or he supposed in his diminished state he’ll go by Harvey (his metaphysical skin crawled), found his way out of the car, started a fight, and John left. It was convenient, and frankly suspicious, that John had not put him back in the dumpster, even though he had threatened. John had effectively given Harvey free rein in his head yet again as if it was as simple as handing over the keys to this ridiculous car and scoffing ‘just don’t hit anything this time, kiddo.’

Whether it was a trap or not, Harvey took the offer. Nothing else was similar in ferocity than a starved mind released into a mostly unexplored and open subconscious. While the wormhole technology was extracted, the rest of his enemy’s memories were available to be pilfered for useful data. Before when he had the tether of the probe and the adjoining strength, he didn’t spend any time dwelling on John’s past. He had followed his ambition right down to the root of the astronaut’s memories for that valuable technology. Now Harvey was without mooring. 

He was a castaway, but without hope of rescue. The spaces he traveled through were events that he couldn’t change, or if he tried, would alert the fully recovered attention of the man whose thoughts he was trespassing through. Harvey thought back to the deciding moment after the chip was freshly severed. Tossed in that dumpster prison without so much as a fight. 

He picked the first memory at random. He had already lived in John’s head for a cycle. Often seeing a timeline straight through failed to highlight any noticeable patterns, especially if the changes were too gradual to notice. This memory pulsed in from the edges and there was John asleep on the floor. A woman crouched next to him jostling him gently awake.

“John.” She whispered. “John, you spent the night sleeping on the floor. Are you okay?”

One of his eyes cracked open. “Alex? What time is it? Oooh my aching head.” An arm snaked up to clutch his forehead.

“It’s going on 2pm. Are you okay? I haven’t seen you in days. Is this the first time you’ve been home this week?”

He palpated his forehead, groaning all the while. “I came back to shower a few days ago. DK and I have been working.” He paused for a ragged breath. “And then drinking.”

“Thought as much. I brought you some Advil. Want some coffee?” The woman named Alex presented his open eye with a mug and the two pills.

He worked his arms under his body and pressed up to sitting. He plucked the pills from her open hand and batted his eyelashes at her. “Thank you doll face.”

“You think you’re cute, don’t you? You’re not that cute. I’m never writing you a prescription for Adderall again if this is how you abuse it.”

“I think I’m pretty cute.” He swallowed the painkillers dry and then gingerly took the coffee which he cradled like a small child in his hands. He sipped it with the same care. “Oh thank fuck for coffee.”

“You’re burned out,” Alex said frankly.

“Oh yeah, completely agree, one thousand percent burned out, but…” He sipped the coffee again, ignoring Alex’s transforming expression from concern to an even deeper concern. 

She took the bait, “But what, John?”

“Guess who finalized the hypothesis of my dissertation!” He didn’t wait for her to guess. “This guy! I submitted it last night.”

“Whaat!? John that’s terrific!” Alex’s big smile split her face. John beamed in the light of that smile. “It took so long to draft! Do you know how to test it?”

“Sure do. I’m going to fly a lot of jets very close to the stratosphere. Try to bounce pennies off the gravitational pull, see how far they travel.”

“John…That’s not a test.”

“Shows how much you know.” He sipped the coffee again and his eyes rolled back a bit in pleasure. He put the mug down. “I think I’m going to go for a run. Get the blood pumping back up into this brain instead of.” He gestured to the rest of his body. “Wherever it is.” He bounced to stand and his back immediately cracked. He howled.

“You spent the night on the floor remember? Maybe see a chiropractor first. I can recommend someone. She’s probably available, she’s been complaining about her lack of clients lately.”

“Did the heaven’s send you?” He was hunched over unable to stand up.

“Of course, only an angel would have the patience to deal with your crap, dearest.”

“Har har.” He supported himself on the couch and looked out the window. “What day is it? Seems nice out there.”

“It’s Saturday.”

“Cool. I’ll see this chiropractor. Go for a run. And get back to work.”

“Jesus Christ John! How about a day off?!”

His face went blank. “Why?”

“He says ‘why’” She muttered disapprovingly. “I don’t know. Maybe to sleep in your actual bed. Maybe to eat a decent meal. Maybe to, ya know, bathe. Read a pleasure book. Go for a walk. Spend time with me?”

He still looked blank. “Yeah okay. I guess I can do that stuff.”

Harvey moved away from that memory and ended up in a rowdy bar lit by low hanging green glass lights. The tables were filled by men and women in uniforms. Everyone was rambunctious with bravado. It was either very late or everyone had started drinking very early.

Harvey snaked through the crowd. He never got over being unnoticed. Every time he went anywhere in the real world people would notice him. It put him on edge, but the complete absence of either recognition or venom from the people in these memories was unnerving. Most of his life was spent making himself someone noteworthy, someone that couldn’t be hidden or ignored, but life was also cruel. These figments of the past would never notice him. This was his life now.

He found John lounging in a packed booth. He matched all the other soldiers in the booth wearing blue and white and in some stage of unbuttoned collapse. Many voices were talking all at once. John was in the middle of telling a story that was suffocated behind loud laughter.

Mid-conversation an enlisted man wandered over. He wasn’t staggered drunk but he carried the tell-tale swagger of someone several shots in. He clapped a graduate on the shoulder, who acknowledged him with a smile. John didn’t acknowledge him until the man brought out a Walther P38 and showed it around like it was a gold brick.

Naturally, most of the table’s attention snapped to the soldier openly holding a gun in a crowded bar. At first, he beamed with attention and showed the antique off. “Yeah, I bought it off a guy that had no idea what it was worth.” Some officers’ bobbed their heads and agreed that it was a good buy. John wasn’t among them.

“Look. No one here wants to see your Nazi pistol bud, so why don’t you stop flashing it around like you’re only out tonight for genocide.” John snapped. The table’s attention steeled. The few agreeing officers stuttered quietly into shame.

The grunt’s proud smile vanished instantly and the gun’s grip swiveled into his palm. “What did you say faggot?” The bar quieted instantly, a lone billiard ball clacking once in the bowels of the bar before silence.

“I think you heard what I said.” John held the eyes of the other soldier. He didn’t blink, but he did lean forward into the tension. “What are you doing pointing that gun at me? You’re acting like this isn’t the American south. You’re acting like this isn’t an off base bar. Everybody here has a gun hidden somewhere, and my guess is if you make any move other than heading out that door they are all going to be pointed at you.”

The other man’s frown deepened, but his gaze slid off to the side. He rolled the gun’s trigger hold on his index and stood, half the table stood with him. John didn’t. “Just joking ladies. Keep your tits in your shirts.”

“That’s Officer to you, grunt. You should leave.” Suggested a nearby blue and white officer.

“Was just heading out.” Cowed now, the soldier quietly turned and left. A few of his friends followed him out. The bar went back to normal late Friday night racket as if it had never been interrupted.

John whistled. “What a jackass.” He chugged the last dregs of his beer. “Anyone else want another?” A few of his friends shouted agreement, and the night continued onward.

The ignored shadow shifted. Harvey clenched his teeth, looked at the bar scene as the edges went fuzzy. “Another blackout Crichton? My, you did have a lot of fun.” He said to no one but the shivering, darkening memory, so like changing the channel on a tv (he’d noticed this technology in other memories), he blinked onward.

John could tell there was a thick layer of snow weighing down on the tent’s shell. The evening had started with the hope of going well into the early morning around the campfire, but by 7, big flakes were starting to fall. He and DK had stuck around passing whiskey until about 10, well after the girls crawled into their tents and sleeping bags, but by then it was snowing in real earnest. 

Now, John was awake. It hadn’t been long, but he woke with an uncommon clarity. He had a sudden urge to see if the snow had stopped. He checked his watch for the time and temperature (a chill -3 at 3) before slipping on pants, shoes, and his coat. He glanced back at Alex, curled in her bag, before crunching into the snow outside.

The crisp air stung his lungs immediately. His breath puffing out in clouds. The snow had stopped and had left an unmarred blanket of white from their campsite down the slope to the ice fringed lake. John had always come up here in the summer, but this was something else. The edge of the Milky Way was visible with a sharpness he had rarely seen even through a telescope, thick with countless clusters and so bright he could read a book with nothing more. The snow itself was radiant and pristine. Memphis snow days from his childhood couldn’t hold a candle.

Guided on an unseen string, he set off for the lake, shoes still unlaced. It was several hundred yards to shamble down the hillside to the dock. The crunch of fresh snow lulled him along. At the end of the dock, the lake was ice-free and clear as a black mirror. He swung his legs over the edge and glanced down into the water for his own dark image. It was there awe-struck back at him. The stars reflected like thousands of keyholes in dark rooms.

He sat in peace absorbing the sky and the reflection. He looked for the planets. He looked for major star clusters, the big dipper, the north star, and as if waiting for an audience, an aurora borealis curtained across the sky. The transparent green high in the heavens rained in sheets without gracing the lake. His jaw fell open, unable to tear his eyes away. “Well fuck me.”

When the aurora rolled off to the hidden world it came from, John watched for as long as his shivering body could manage. When his fingers were too numb to know when they were bent. He pressed up to stand. 

“Plunk.”

In his distraction, it took him a moment to realize he was missing a boot, and it was now in the lake. He caught the sight of it sinking beyond visibility, before calculating at the distance he’d have to travel back to his tent with only a sock, before considering the 10-mile hike back to the car tomorrow, before finally considering alternative boot options and the chances of the ice freezing over by morning. He pinched his nose and whispered to himself, “you’re a fucking idiot, a real moron.”

With stiff fingers, he undressed down to his cooling skin. He had already been past the stage of goosebumps. After a whole shivered breath, as soon as it was expelled from his lungs, he jumped headfirst into the lake. Immediately, he gasped wildly back to the surface, shocked, before diving under again. It took three dives to find the lost boot, soaked black and already icing as he slung it up the dock ladder. As soon as he was up it was a quick struggle to use his flannel to dry off as best he can, zip his coat back on, bundle up his foot the best he could, and hustle back to the campsite, teeth clattering the entire way.

Breathing hard at the campsite, he dug the old fire pit out of the snow, toed the gray ashen remnants, and unearthed a cluster of smoldering red. He sighed raggedly in relief and within several long minutes, spent shuddering with heart-stopping cold, a fire licked up over fresh tinder he had hastily added. The feeling returning to first his fingers and toes left him perpetually grimacing like his feeling was returning only by setting his nerves on fire. An hour or so later, after several cups of snow melted hot water, he returned to his tent.

Alex yelped as he curled into her. “Holy fuck you are cold! How long were you outside?” He smiled into her hair. “Shhh, I’ll tell you in the morning, just let me get some of that sweet sweet body heat.”

Like cutting cloth, a rip appeared in the scene and out stepped Harvey. He stood in the last memory John had of the campsite outside, frozen in time and ice. Harvey hadn’t grown up on a planet. He wondered how his life would be different if hie had lived on an ice world. If the fact that he was temperature-regulation deficient would have only been a problem once he started traveling to other planets. Maybe he too could have been losing boots in frozen lakes and diving naked after them.

This memory was uniquely different than the others he’d watched. He deduced that John was an extrovert because nearly all of his lauded self-history was alongside other people. “Odd” He muttered and looked up at the sky. He hadn’t figured John as the sort of person who could appreciate the sublime. He supposed any ape could be awed silent by the night sky. He frowned. That wasn’t accurate, apes don’t build space ships with such rudimentary materials and thwart geniuses like himself.

He spent a long time staring at the Milky Way attempting to find the Scarran Empire.

Afterward, the shadow stepped into an auto garage. It was patinated in the way only decades of use could create, clearly the home of many hard-working professionals, but at this moment it was almost empty. Dust motes floated in the morning light of many windows.

John worked under the hood of a car. Harvey had only seen a few cars like this before. Cars that were made of this material were obviously older models. This one had an appealing swish of a chassis but looked like someone had left it out in the elements for a cycle, or three. When DK entered the bay, they greeted each other with the same ill smile and hollow eyes.

“Sleep with any women last night?” DK smirked at him.

John, knowing full well that they didn’t leave the dorm last night despite blacking out, barely blinked. “Only your mom. She said you’re looking a little thin lately and should stop by for dinner more often.”

DK sneered. “Fuck you dude.” But his annoyance didn’t last long, curiosity pulled him forward into the guts of the car. “You got up before noon to work? How’s this going anyway?”

“Good. I wanted to get started on switching the transmission today. Some guys here said they’d give me a hand.” He looked around the empty garage grumbling. “But everyone must’ve been partying last night since no one is here yet.”

“Yeah, it’s a Sunday morning shit head. What’d you think? They’re rolling out of bed for you?”

John rolled his eyes. “I dunno what I thought. My alarm went off this morning and I came over half dead. Must be my superior work ethic that dragged my ass here and no one else.”

DK surveyed the vehicle. “Will it be able to hit higher than 60 when it’s electric? Won’t the efficiency be fucking awful?” 

John’s nod started affirmative and ended with another pronounced eye roll. “The efficiency will be fine, and if not at first, it will be.”

“Where do you get the money for this switch anyway?”

John grunted into the car. Removing one bolt was giving him a surprising amount of trouble. “Selling my left kidney. Prostitution. Being a lab rat for medical testing.”

DK leaned heavily against the car. “How about really?”

John sighed. “If you must know I’ve been donating my sperm. Apparently, MIT undergrads with great hair and physiques like Adonis are in pretty high demand with all the lesbians and single, uber-professional babes.”

“Fuck you dude. I bet it’s just your parents.”

And John’s eyes flickered. It really was his parents. “Yeah so. It’s for school.” It wasn’t entirely for school. John had already had very detailed fantasies about flipping donuts, street racing, and picking up women flawlessly.

“Just be honest. How long have we known each other? Chill out. I’m not judging.”

“You’re so judgy, DK. I’ve never met anyone as judgy as you.”

DK chortled a pained laugh. “What’d you eat for breakfast today? I was thinking about going for breakfast, getting half my body weight in potatoes and bacon.”

John had nothing but a fig newton and three sips of instant coffee before vomiting in the garage’s toilet. His stomach curled again. “I think I’m gonna throw up in my carburetor.”

“Good thing you won’t need that anymore then!” DK clasped him on the shoulder, guiding him away. “Come on. I’m buying.”

John made a grumbled sound that could’ve meant anything. They hobbled out supported by each other’s shoulders.

Harvey wasn’t familiar with this amount of camaraderie. Physical proximity to others was a tactic he often used to get leverage on a situation. John would likely say that Scorpius used it to ‘give people the creeps’ and he wasn’t wrong. Harvey was fully aware of how alarming he was to most people. He’d spent his whole life disgusting people simply by proximity. Why not wield it like any other tool?

But this, friendship, well, he wasn’t sure if he could understand it. It had no hierarchy. It seemed to have no rules either. It bothered him, but he had no interest in watching these two bicker over potatoes, so he left.

John was in time out. He was a scruffy boy with scabbed knees and big roaming eyes that seemed both too large for his pouting face and too inquisitive for someone so small and dirty. He wiggled as if pained in his chair pointed at the corner and kicked the corner scuffing the wall with shoe prints. The class ended before he was excused from his punishment. His classmates went screeching out the door with coats and backpacks half on. When the room was quiet again, his teacher, a wizened woman with her hair neatly pinned, spoke. “You can get up now, John. I need to speak with you before you leave.”

He huffed but trundled over obediently.

“I think I deserve an apology for your disruption today.”

“I’m sorry Mrs. Carmen.”

“Sorry for what John? Be specific.”

“I’m sorry for-” His eyes darted around as if the room had the answer. “For telling people my funny story and standing on a desk.”

The teacher sighed. “Yes, we should never stand on our desks, John. But the problem wasn’t the story. It was when you told it. I was in the middle of my lesson.”

“Yeah, but you called on me!”

“John!” She snapped. “Let me finish. I called on you for the answer. I know that you knew the answer.”

“Yeah but that was so easy, ’s boring! It was 257.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “John, I don’t understand why you act this way. You are so smart.”

“I’m not that smart. Besides if I’m silly no one will expect anything from me. I can do anything I want, and I’ll always be able to surprise people.”

“That’s not true, but that’s pretty insightful for a seven-year-old. It tells me that your behavior isn’t really how you feel or express yourself. That it’s all an act. It’s just convenient.”

He had a finger up his nose. “Huh? What?”

“You do know that your choice to act out and be disruptive is going to cause problems for you your entire life, right?”

He considered the crud on the tip of his finger. “Yeah but I like doing whatever I want. I like surprising people. Mom says problems will find you no matter what and if you’re good you can always figure them out.”

Mrs. Carmen perked the corner of her lip. “Hmm. Then on that note, if you get time out one more time this week, I’ll make sure I bring that up to your mother when I am forced to call her about your continued behavior. Are we clear?”

John rolled his entire head back and groaned.

“John!”

“Yes, Mrs. Carmen.”

“Good. Now go on home.” 

John lept off his chair and somehow managed to collect all his things within a matter of seconds.

“Make sure you wear your helmet!” But he was already out the door and sprinting down the breezeway to his bicycle.

Harvey traveled through a few bits of John’s childhood. It became clear he was an unmarred child. He looked like everyone his age, small, expressive, and innocent. Perhaps he had too much energy for his own good, but the adults mentoring him were more charmed than annoyed. This wasn’t new information to Harvey. Even Peacekeeper children had more freedom than he had. He was raised to be brutal. John was raised to be...something else entirely.

“You okay, son?”

John came to lying flat on his back in the middle of the street. Coagulated blood pumped weakly from a wound on his nose and head. A policeman was leaning over him. His car’s lights pulsed red and blue across the road.

“Can you stand? Or do I need to call the EMS?” He offered him a hand, which John took, and hauled him up. He stood as still as he could in his pair of rollerblades. “Hey, you’re Jack Crichton’s boy.”

“Uh, yeah. I’m alright. Thanks.”

The cop chuckled. “Oh, I’m sure you are. But I’m still going to take you to the hospital. Bet that’s a concussion right there.” He pointed to the head wound. “And a broken nose right there.” He practically poked him in the face. “What happened here?”

“We were playing street hockey.”

“I gathered.” The cop held a curved stick labeled ‘John C’ in felt pen and tape.

“I dunno. It got rough.”

“Gathered that too. But all your friends scattered when I drove down the street. Must’ve forgotten you?”

“We didn’t forget him!” Hissed a kid from behind a car. Two more poked their heads up. “We didn’t want to get in trouble.” Now exposed, they slid out on blades with their own sticks.

“Why do you think you’d be in trouble?” The officer raised an eyebrow.

“Cause you’re a cop.” Shared one with metal on her teeth. “Cause we were fighting.” Shared another with a baseball cap.

“Who were you fighting with?”

“Nuh-uh. We aren’t NARCs.” Metal teeth seethed.

“This is a small neighborhood, kid.” The cop replied blandly.

“Can you just take me to the hospital and forget the whole thing, mister?” John looked embarrassed and woozy.

“Well, I’ll have to call your parents.” This earned the policeman a unanimous moan from the four middle schoolers, but despite their protests, they all pack into the car.

At the hospital, John got several stitches in his split skull and a splint for his nose. The flesh around his eyes was beginning to purple by the time a woman burst into the waiting room. She scanned the room, caught eyes with John, and rushed over. She kneeled to clasp his face in both hands. “Oh my poor baby look at your face!”

“Hi, mom.” John was too embarrassed to meet her eyes.

“What have you got into this time?” She almost sounded amused.

He slumped and took her hands off his face. “Amateur boxing. You know me.”

“Was it that Roland boy again? I can talk to his mom. You know we go to the same country club.” 

This time John stepped away. “No mom! Look I’m dealing with it okay? I don’t want your help.”

Her face crumpled, but when she spoke, her voice was sharp. “Violence begets violence, John. Remember that.” And she stood up before the shamed John. “If you need my help. I’m here for you. I’ll do anything for you. You know that right?”

He nodded.

“Okay, let’s go home.” And they exited together into the fading light outside.

Harvey remembered this woman from the Scarran torture John withstood. Her death was obviously painful enough to be a weapon against him, so their relationship must’ve been very strong. He scowled deeper thinking about his abusive childhood again. “How can two beings’ lives be so drastically dissimilar?” But when his mind flashed to his own mother, he wasn’t able to hold onto his bitterness. 

“That’s a memory I can search for.” He muttered from the paused emergency room.

“John!” Susan came barrelling down the porch and cut a path across the grass to him. His crumpled face picked up at the corners with relief, but it’s short-lived. She shook him fiercely when she reached him. “Fuck you, you absolute idiot! Where the fuck were you! Mom’s been dying in the hospital for 3 days!” Now sobbing, she collapsed around him in a shuddering hug, which he embraced entirely despite the rough greeting.

“I’m sorry big sis. I have never been so sorry.” His eyes were red with tears, and he patted Susan’s hair as it fell over her shoulders.

She sobbed into him. “Why do you do this kind of shit? You should’ve been here.”

“Yeah, I should’ve been here. I’m so so sorry.” His eyes met Olivia’s as she graced down the steps quickly and welcomed her into the hug. “Hey, lil sis.”

“Hey bro. Good to see you. Oof and here come the dogs.” The three siblings separated as two giant golden retrievers barrel into John. 

Between the excited dogs punching him in the gut and the repeated licks to the face, John struggled out. “Where’s dad?”

Olivia bent to restrain one. “On the phone. Lots of planning. Lots of people calling.”

Susan shot a look up towards the house. “We told him to give it a rest, but he won’t relax.”

“Sounds like him. Come on let’s go inside. Can I do anything? Order take out?” 

“Yeah, obviously no one is cooking. The funeral is a day from now, by the way. You did bring a suit jacket, right?”

“Yeah Susan, I brought a suit jacket. Alex will be here tomorrow.”

“I know. I spoke to her already.”

The memory ended abruptly, which was certainly odd. Harvey surmised that in his cracked emotional state John must’ve split them up. Harvey would have to find the other remnants to get the entire account, but that didn’t matter now. Time was irrelevant. He moved on.

The jet was spiraling toward the ground. Harvey felt like he was barely traveling. Only the clouds whipped by faster than any wind he’d seen before in his explorations. John was piloting a torpedo-shaped plane faster than the sound barrier and it was now careening towards the planet. 

“Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. For the love of God don’t pass out.” He was practically chanting as he flipped console switches and pulled desperately at the yoke. The plane rattled as the white crest of ocean waves rushed closer to the nose of the jet. Suddenly, the plane’s body snapped horizontal rocketing safely across the water. “Oh thank fuck.”

Harvey felt the adrenaline as well, John must’ve been so thick with it. John breathed sharply but with control. He flicked a switch on the console, and apparently, his coms turned back on because someone was howling at him. “Crichton! If you don’t get your worthless ass back here this instant. This is active duty, not some fucking playground.”

He grimaced. “Roger that sir.” But when the tirade continued he flipped the coms back off with a satisfied snort.

John landed the jet on the aircraft carrier like it was as simple as breathing. He stepped out to immediately greet the white-suited man striding red-faced over to him across the tarmac. “Crichton!”

“Oh brother. I’m going to get it.” John sighed to the nearby tech tending to his jet.

“Looks that way. Fancy footwork by the way. Glad you didn’t belly flop into the ocean.” The tech smothered a smile, and immediately saluted the Captain. John followed. 

Harvey wasn’t sure how he managed to make a salute sarcastic.

“Captain.” John smiled broadly.

“You turned your coms off again, didn’t you? Are you absolutely crazy!? I’ll make sure you never see a rank past Lieutenant you fucking prick. Come to my office.”

John swallowed and flashed a glance at the tech, who only shrugged. He followed the Captain’s retreating back and the memory dissolved again.

Harvey walked into a restaurant with stools at a red counter with red plastic booths along the wall. Every surface was piped with either white pleather or silver chrome. A heavyset woman with impossibly set hair stood behind the counter filing her nails. “Welcome slick. Sit anywhere you like.” She hadn’t raised her eyes at all from her task.

Harvey looked around the restaurant. The other diners were faceless memories shifting in and out of existence like shadows. Tentatively he approached the counter. “What is this place?”

The woman looked up. She had a very pleasant, open face. “Why, sweetie, it's the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Now, what would you like? You looked famished.”

“But.” His mind snagged on ‘sweetie’. “But I’m in John Crichton’s brain.”

She smiled and it practically shimmered. “Well, aren’t you smart! That’s right. This is a memory. A different kind of memory than you’re used to I bet.”

He was puzzled. “A different kind of memory?”

“John remembers this place from his childhood. He came here very often. He has no specific memories of this place, besides its appearance and me. You can call me Dana. Says right here on my nametag.”

Harvey glanced at her server’s tag. It was written in a scripted freehand. 

“Been traveling long?” Dana began drying a glass.

“Yes.” He felt exposed. Any moment he expected John to step out of a booth and punch him. There would be accusations that he overstayed his welcome. He’d go back into the dumpster. He scanned the bright diner for any sign of his jailer.

Even Dana’s frown was pleasant. “Oh hun. I know just what to get you.” She instantly produced a glass of cool brown liquid with a yellow wedge and a pastry filled with jellied stuff. “Here you are.”

Harvey eyed it nervously. “What is it?”

“Aw hun, never had sweet tea and pie before? You’re missing out. Go on, try it.”

He broke the corner of the ‘pie’ with an eating utensil and took a bite. It was sweet but also tart. He finished it off quickly.

Dana laughed. “See I told you you’d like it.”

He reached for the ‘iced tea’ but halted. “Why is this place called Restaurant at the End of the Universe? That’s an impossibility. It can’t be this place’s real name.”

“It’s a reference dear. Here.” And from under the counter, she produced a book. “Read this. You’ll like it.”

“Why will I like this?” It was a small book, dog-eared and marked in the margins.

“Everyone likes that book. It’s a complete impossibility that one wouldn’t. Besides you have all the time in the world. Stay here for as long as you like. If I can get you anything, I’m here.” And then she trundled off to fold napkins.

So he did. He finished the book. It was awful, not accurate at all, incredibly silly. When he finished it and complained, Dana gave him the next book in the series, so he finished that one too. In fact, before leaving the memory, he finished all of them. 

Harvey wondered if in the expansive space of John’s mind there were other memories like this restaurant; memories populated by personalities and not moments in time. He liked being acknowledged again even in this contrived way. He marked the diner’s location on his mental map, in the event he needed to return.


	2. Chapter 2

The diner reminded Harvey that while he traveled like a ghost through John’s brain, living as a figment was a sensational drought. For example, there was never a moment hunger bothered him here, but eating a slice of pie and drinking tea was still fulfilling. It was as if his brain found the menial tasks he put into staying alive as soothing, and without mimicking these old actions, his brain conclude he was moments from dying. The drought was in such totality that at one point, he caught himself missing the sharp overwhelming pain of overheating. He found this unacceptable, since at first, that was one of the few gifts being cerebral gave him and would not wish to deal with the cooling rods ever again. He wasn’t exactly sure how to get food from the memories or water or sleep, at least not yet, but there were other sensations similar to living he could pursue.

So he wasn’t exactly surprised when his travels started to bring him to more and more sexual memories.

“Sergeant.” John tipped the brim of his hat up at the woman walking down the same hallway.

“Lieutenant.” She greeted back but a coy smile perked her lip corners. “Sir. I need your help with something. Can you follow me?”

John returned the smile. “Of course. Happy to help. Lead on.”   
Together they travel the corridors of the aircraft carrier until they get to a hatch. John eyed the door label. “I see, so you need help in this…broom closet?”

She covered her mouth to cloak her smile. “Anyone down that hallway?”

“All clear. You?”

John answered by opening the hatch. “After you.” 

She stepped in. John stepped in and as soon as the door closed. The Sergeant threw herself on John. Her tongue slipped into his open mouth. He immediately went for her belt, unclasping the buckle, and opening her zipper. She followed suite while pressing gasping kisses down his throat and his body tighter against the hatch door.

“Miss me Alex?”

“Shut up and fuck me.” She hissed and struggled his pants down. He chuckled before slamming her around against the hatch door. Efficiently he made short work of her shirt, pushing the undershirt and bra up over her nipples. He sucked one into his mouth while caressing a crease into her underwear. She purred. “Condom?”

He pulled back quickly, “yup, yup. Uhm.” He scrambled into his fallen pants. Alex chasing his earlobe, lip, jaw, and neck.

“Ok.” He pressed back into her to nudge her thighs open, heaving her up the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist to sink onto his arousal. They hummed into each others’ lips. He thrusted again and slowly built a desperate pattern. With what leverage she had she began to rise to meet his thrusts. They both faltered as their nerves electrified and pace significantly altered, collapsed into gasps. 

When they recovered their speech, Alex nipped at John’s ear. “Someday we’re going to get in so much trouble.”

“To get into trouble, I’d have to be out of trouble first.” She laughed before John hefted her roughly. “Round two? Or see you next shore leave?” 

Harvey pressed off the opposite wall. He’d watched John’s attempt to seduce Aeryn Sun. Once or twice it was successful, but he kept allowing everyone’s feelings to get involved, complicating everything. Count on John to take on the challenge to pursue a Peacekeeper for romance. It said a lot about John’s inclinations for punishment. But this show of force was a bit unexciting. However, points awarded to John for being the superior officer. Clearly their compatibility worked well enough that Alex was with him for multiple cycles. Sadly their relationship was more functional than tantalizing. He lazily perused most of their history for anything more exciting.   
Bored now, Harvey moved on.

John rolled a different women over to press her hips back onto his cock. His fingers knotted in her hair and he yanked. Her back arched as she groaned up to meet him. “Now I think you’ve had enough you greedy bitch. You’re beautiful, but you’re not allowed to cum again. Not until I say.” She writhed. “Is that a yes?”

She sucked air through her teeth. “Y-yes.”

“Good girl.” He bit her shoulder, which award him another writhing thrust back. He threaded one hand under her hips to undulate against her core. The rise and fall of their bodies as they thrummed against one another tangibly throbbing.

“God I love your hands.” The woman moaned. She pressed down into his undulations. “I’m not—going to be able to—stop.”

John spoke to her shoulder blade. “Now Caroline, we agreed.”

“I know!” She wailed, and she visibly struggled longer to try to prevent the thrill moving through her. However, in a burst, as if it struck her by surprise, she shuddered. 

John yanked her hair again, she twisted in his arms. “Bad girl. You know what I do to bad girls?” He pulled out, and roughly entered her other hole, earning him a strangled howl. John smirked, “Don’t resist, you earned it.” He rode her like that until he staggered into his own orgasm.

Harvey watched expressionless from his shadowed corner, arms crossed. “That’s a bit better. I didn’t think you had it in you, John.” John’s history with this woman named Caroline was more interesting, but definitely short lived. This relationship was purely structured around their sexual attraction, which was more normal and understandable to Harvey. There were other moments to examine. Women before Alex, but the copulations were the flounderings of a boy entering maturity. His exploits in college were cringeworthy.

He went all the way back to John’s first time in High School, and saw Chiana, which was clearly the involvement of Wormhole technology. Harvey changed tact for numerous memories afterward trying to uncover how time and wormholes interact. Somehow the elasticity of time dissuaded infractions to cause much affect. This went against many contemporary theories. Time wasn’t brittle. Instead it was viscous, elastic. In this case, John didn’t remember his first hookup very well and therefore didn’t recognize Chiana when the Nebari ended up on Moya, almost 20 years after they slept together. Harvey found this fascinating.

At the end of traveling back in time, Harvey returned closer to the present. He revisited John and Aeryn’s encounters, and was surprised that in John’s psyche these memories were so manicured that they felt unreal. Harvey attributed this quality was achieved because John currently loved Aeryn, and wasn’t able to examine them through a realist’s lense. He sought elsewhere.

The memories were becoming few and far between now. The surface level accessible fantasies were long past and Harvey was sinking into the murky depths of John’s brain. He’d been here before. This was the space he eventually discovered the Wormhole Tech. It meant that there was something worth hiding and so he sank without struggle or impatience.

He ended up on a beach. It was a quiet, warm wind night. Black ocean meet black sky seamlessly. In the distance was a white lifeguard chair where two people were kissing. Empty beer bottles speckled the sand below. When they pulled apart one was John Crichton, apparently in his late teens, nearly a man. The other is a boy of similar age, freckled and red faced. 

“You know, I’ll miss you after tomorrow.” Freckles spoke quietly.

John nodded. “It's been a good summer.”

The other man hesitantly rested his hand down on John’s thigh. They both stared at it as if the leg would catch on fire at any moment. Instead they mutually swallowed hard. John broke the silence first, “Uh, Ethan.” 

Ethan immediately jerked back his hand. “Oh. Oh yeah of course. Duh. My bad.” He practically trapped the offending hand under his own thigh.

John looked off in the opposite direction and gulped again, his face flushed. “I mean, maybe I could, uh...”

“I don’t want to force you into anything. I mean, you’re my friend. I don’t want to make it weird.”

“I mean, you wouldn’t be. I like to think I’d try anything...once or. I don’t mean that like...” John trailed off. He looked back at the man next to him. Then they kissed again, fiercer this time. “I’m an idiot.” He whispered between breaths. Hands slipped under clothes to stroke bare skin. Spins arched up. The air in the memory felt like it was sucked out by a vacuum.

John broke away to slide between Ethan’s knees on the raise bench. Their eyes met, both feverish in the dark. “Ok. Ok.” John slipped Ethan’s shorts lower on his thighs. 

“John—” John kissed the rise of Ethan’s hip bone before bending down to swallow his cock. Ethan thrusted weakly up to greet his open mouth. John pressed him back down into his seat and continued sucking with slick control.

It wasn’t long before Ethan was biting off sounds in the back of his throat and arching as taut as a bow string. “Ah. I’m a—” And he writhed up moaning.

John pulled slowly back flicking his eyes up to Ethan’s. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “I guess I did good?”

Ethan chuckled lightly. “Wow.”

“Want to get off this high chair?” 

And together they slipped off the chair and headed for the beach grass.

Harvey was frozen, chest hammering, unable to follow the two into the slopes. The memory continued, but he looked back at the toiling ocean to try to regulate his breathing. Homosexuality wasn’t uncommon in either Scarran or Sebacean races. He wanted to be rational about this. His reaction was outside of his expectations. He’d never sought, even pornographically, the coupling of other men, but there was something in watching his nemesis service another man that was very surprising. He had to leave. Maybe he would return later and watch more. He looked back towards the dunes, his curiosity spiked but so did his nerves. It had a similar taste to overheating. The only option was to leave, and he did.

Alex huffed. “Doesn’t being in a jet raise your blood pressure enough? You have to go running into a thousand-degree fire?” Harvey was back on proverbial safe land. He sighed in relief.

“Yeah Alex, to save people! I thought you were on board with this. I’ll be like 200 feet in the air. I’m in the reserve anyway. I’m not sure I can say no.” He fisted clothes into a travel bag and scrambled around their Boston apartment.

“You don’t see me enough.” She whipped out her fingers as if to count his numerous offenses. “You don’t see your family enough. When they call they talk to me.”

“Quit with the guilt trip! They know I’m busy. I send them messages.” John struggled mentally to remember when. Thankfully he was turned away when he frowned, it had been give-or-take 8 months. No biggie, he would call them when he got back.

“You know your mom has cancer right?”

“She’s fine. She’s in remission. Now give me a kiss, I’m gonna miss my flight.” Despite her pinched face, she leaned in and kissed him goodbye. Then he was out the door, into his car, and speeding to the airport.

In truth, he had asked for this role while in the guard. If he was going to perform military functions after the fact, he wanted to at least do good. What could be better than saving the countryside and the people that inhabited it from out of control fires. All he had to do was fly in shifts over the wildfire and douse the flames with retardent. 

On site, he flew several shifts over the inferno. It was tiring work and the wind kept shifting mercilessly. The other pilots were okay, but by day three everyone was tired. Little progress had been made on staunching the flames.

Day four came too fast, John was in the air with the latest dump, and over the radio came the news that the fire had changed direction again. It was barrelling towards a new housing development and would start licking the foundations in less than an hour. Evacuation was underway. Without direction he attempted to cut off the burn. The retardant stifled a line of flames approaching the development but a building on the far corner was suddenly alight. 

John radioed in from the air. “Please tell me those houses are empty”

“The evacuation isn’t finished. We’ll send support immediately.” Command reported stiffly.

“Not enough time. I’m going in.”

“You don’t have the right gear!”

“Screw that! I can manage.” 

John careened over the home, buffeting the building flames. “Is there anyone in there! Your house is on fire!”

A woman’s head poked out a window. “I can’t get my dad out!” She screamed over the roar of the helicopter.

Harvey zoned out. Yes, John was quite the hero. He was positive everyone would live through this encounter. John would be reprimanded for his maverick behavior, but he could go home to Alex, be the hero. Around him the fire burned higher than any he’d seen. Nothing in the residential district resisted it’s coursing destruction. He wished it could burn out his eyes, burn out his brain, his nerves, or just take his entire dreadful body while it’s at it. After a time, the memory dissolved and turned into another.

After a long line of memories he could barely remember, he found himself sitting in one of the red booths at the Restaurant. A bowl of what Dana called ‘chicken noodle soup’ steamed in front of him. He was barely consuming it, but it never cooled. In his daydream, he kept returning to the man John was with on the beach. What had become of him? He wasn’t in any other memories Harvey had visited. Perhaps, he was a momentary experiment for John, one that was quickly forgotten. Harvey poked at the soup. 

The restaurant door had a bell that chimes when shades entered, it chimed now. The booth across from Harvey compressed and squeaked in the way only taunt plastic did. Harvey looked up. Ethan sat across from him in red swim trunks and a plane white shirt. In the daylight, he had light red hair, grey eyes, a sunburned nose, and freckles on every inch of skin. 

Harvey tensed. “What is this?”

“You requested me.” Ethan said stiffly.

“And you are here how exactly?” Ethan stayed mutely silent. Apparently that wasn’t the right question. Harvey tried again. “You’re Ethan.”

“Yes.” He smiled.

Harvey discarded all the questions about the mechanics of this phenomenon. Although he was curious, he could discover the mechanics through successful interaction not through direct questioning. He had one important question to ask this person. “What happened to you and John?”

Ethan became more animated and tore at a napkin. “We worked together for a summer as lifeguards at a beach camp. When the summer ended, we went to different colleges. I disappeared, and never got back in touch.”

One question conveniently became more. “What does John think happened?”

Ethan looked pained. His eyes drifted out the window. “He doesn’t like it, but he thinks I got a disease. Died.” 

“Is he certain?” 

“No. He didn’t try very hard to find me. I might have left college. My family might have moved. I might have not wanted to talk with him.”

“What was the summer like?”

Ethan, when answering questions he knew, was very lifelike. Clearly John remembered small ticks about this person. He blinked rapidly when he thought. “It was hard at first. Early on some of the other guys caught wind that I was gay, and it hadn’t gone over well because we had to share cabins. At the time everyone was scared of AIDS, and uhm, I was threatened and isolated a lot. John basically was my only friend that summer. He made sure no one was a jerk to me, and we watched out for each other. He didn’t have to do that, but it was nice that he did.”

“Did you copulate more than once?”

His pale skin turned bright red. “No-o! That’s a weird word. We only had sex once, and we were both sort of drunk. It didn’t mean anything.” He had ripped his napkin to shreds.

“Did you want more?”

But Ethan’s shade had stilled. “I can’t answer that question. Because I don’t know.”

“Did John want more from you?”

Ethan pursed his lips. “Don’t think so. John likes women. He was probably just hormonally charged and at an all boys camp. He’s never fucked a guy again if that’s what you’re asking.”

It was strange to Harvey that while he wasn’t real his blood could noticeably course. If Ethan could be summoned like this, then others could be too. John must have facsimiles of all the important people in his life, so he could have internal dialogues with them regularly. “Does he talk to you like this?”

“Not very often. Not anymore.”

“Why?”

Ethan stilled. “My summer was nearly 20 years ago. I’m a footnote. Other people are more important to him now.”

Harvey wasn’t able to ask any other questions that this shade was capable of answering. Eventually he excused Ethan, and Dana, noting that he looked miserable, gave him a piece of chocolate mousse for dessert. It was better than the soup.

When he exited the diner, he shifted through a senseless selection of memories. A highschool football game, a boat trip, a broken dish, a science project, a Christmas gift, and more cycled past Harvey. Until without much thought, the memories dissipated into the empty black of liminal space.

He was in suspension and in thought. He was discovering a lot about how to navigate the planes of John’s mind. There was a part of him that wanted to check on the real John out in the world. Harvey was uncertain how much time had passed, but regardless, he was sure as soon as John realized he was wandering around his head, there was a big possibility that Harvey was going back in the dumpster, so best to stretch out this experience longer.

The liminal space darkness was less claustrophobic than the dumpster. He relaxed into it. He thought about John on his knees, the texture of a Sebacean tongue, or maybe human’s were a bit different, sliding up his forming erection. He unbuckled his codpiece and with a gloved hand stroked himself hard. The chance that he could fuck his fist to completion was slim, but resisting his arousal would be even more fruitless and not nearly as enticing. 

He thought about John, a prime example of Sebacean genetics if examined on appearance alone. Tall, muscled, and arrogant, he acted Sebacean too, scheming and violent. He was more expressive than a normal Sebacean. It gave him away too often. He would have had that beaten out of him early if he was raised a Peacekeeper. Harvey’s cock jumped thinking about John bruised and bleeding on the ground under a Peacekeeper’s boot. He’d look understandably fierce, the stubborn man. He’d seen that anger not enough times in all honesty. It was more appealing than the soft, flushed glance John gave Ethan that night on the beach. 

Harvey wet into his hand. He pushed the fantasy more. His hand knotted in John’s short hair. John’s split lip bled freely and his angry eyes flashed with murderous intention. Harvey fucked John’s throat to his own choking completion. 

The haze that followed was brief. He breathed in sharply, wiped his hands clean, and tucked himself back in. He hadn’t had many infuriating adversaries before, not that he’d been a clone trapped in any of their heads either. This was a wholly unique experience. It was worrying. 

Harvey stumbled into a dark sitting room.

“Are you the monster under my bed?”

Harvey jerked. A boy sat in the middle of the floor, haloed by the light of a TV. 

His eyes adjusted to see John as a very young child. Perhaps the youngest version he’d seen. “Yes.” Harvey managed.

John was weary and considered him again. “Dad said to face my fears.” So despite the child’s obvious concern, he meekly offered. “Want to watch Star Trek?”

Harvey’s shoulders sunk. “What is it?” 

He crammed popcorn into his mouth. “TV show about space. The commercials are almost over.”

Harvey tentatively sat on the sofa outside the halo of light. This memory like the Restaurant at the End of the Universe had no end. It was an elaborate loop that would rerun at its completion. He’s not sure how long he sat there in the dark watching Captain Kirk bash the brains out of green lizards, but oddly enough, it did calm him.

Humans had a complicated imaginary relationship with a place they’d not yet explored. Space was a big question for them, so they filled it in with whatever they could. Although the episodes were convoluted and fantastic, more so than ordinary life, he found a sense of peace in the fantasy. Things would be much easier if benevolent forces were traversing the galaxy on missions of peace. The alternative was far worse. In the half-light of the TV, he dozed off and had no dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

Harvey awoke in a graveyard. It was a painfully bright day. The lake nearby didn’t help, and reflected sharp light on the black huddled crowd further up the slope. In the crowd, John wore sunglasses, but the sharp light highlighted the obvious tear tracks on his cheeks. His father and sisters stood next to him, looking equally harrowed behind dark glasses.

John must not have remembered what was said about his mother, since the final words of the priest were droned out. The coffin sank. Songs were sung. John’s father slung a shovel of soil down on top of the glossy box. He was the picture of stoicism, but at the event’s conclusion, drew his son aside and muttered, “Lord, I need a drink.”

“The reception is next.” John spoke like he was very far away. Then he shivered and his voice returned. “There are drinks in the limos. Want me to steal some nips, and you and I take the long way home?”

Jack took off his glasses and pinched his nose bridge. His eyes were bloodshot, puffy. “No, we have a responsibility to her, John. We need to see this through.”

That wasn’t what John wanted to hear, and his frown tightened. He itched for a fight, but folded it inward, squelched it quickly. With one controlled breath, he nodded his head. “Yeah, you’re right dad. Let’s get on to the reception. Everyone will be waiting.”  
The family slid into the long black sedan and journeyed home.

Harvey stepped into John’s and Alex’s apartment. They sat snuggled tightly on the couch watching television. On closer inspection, they were watching each other more than whatever was on. Alex stroked John’s neck slowly. John was laughing about something that Harvey had entered late on.

"I love you but you are such a dork! How do you make it through life?" Alex continued her petting.

"Oh, probably my brilliance and charm." John caught her hand and kissed her fingertips.

"More like bad decisions and absurd luck, I think." She was charmed completely. A smile larger and brighter than the star Earth orbited sat on her face.

John’s smile was more wicked. “I love you too. Maybe someday I’ll prove to you I’m more than this huge dork.”

“Getting a doctorate and going to space won’t change anything, you know. You’ll still always be John. If you really want to prove yourself to me, you’ll go get the ice cream from the freezer.”

“Say ‘please’.” John nipped her finger tips.

“Please.” Alex faked a pout.

“Say ‘pretty please’.”

“Pretty please.”

“‘With a cherry on top’.”

“With a cherry on top.” She followed along while entranced by what John’s tongue was doing to her hand.

“Fine, but after we eat the ice cream. I’m eating you next.” John peeled off her after a brief kiss, and trundled off to the kitchen.

Harvey rolled his eyes. He was pretty sure he saw the results of this discussion already, but now he was bothered to see the lead up was so gentle and genial. Affection had always made his skin crawl, but he wasn’t positive if this was because he truly didn’t enjoy it or if he’d experienced it so little in his life that it was uncomfortably foreign. For Harvey it was clear that he didn’t want to linger any longer.

Harvey thought he accidentally found his way back into the diner at first. Dana was there polishing a glass, but she didn’t acknowledge Harvey’s entrance. Instead she was eavesdropping on a booth occupied by an older man and a young John. John sucked dramatically at the end of a straw feeding into a frothy white, elaborate drink.

“Now what do you have to say to your ol’ gramps?”

“Thanks for the milkshake, grandpa.” John had practically drained the confection in minutes. The boy had an awkwardly large front tooth and was missing teeth elsewhere. Harvey was mildly disgusted that human children seemingly got another set of teeth before adulthood.

“You’re welcome, my boy.” The grandpa drank a cup of black coffee. He looked robust but the clench of his hands suggested arthritis. He had something murky in one of his eyes. “Now what were you up to when I picked you up just now?”

“Playing cowboy and indians.” John huffed, his childish happy demeanor vanished. “Timmy cheated and wouldn’t go down when he was shot! I hate that. It’s not fair.”

Grandpa smiled. “Life isn’t fair. If Timmy won’t follow the rules, than make him next time.”

John fiddled with his straw. As a child his expressions were transparent, he was now uncertain. “I don’t want to make him. If he just followed our rules, we would get along and be happy. Have fun together.”

“If you let someone do whatever they want now, then they will never stop.”

John was not convinced. Harvey supposed this was not what he learned from Star Trek or his mother, and the ideas were competing. 

Grandpa squinted at the pouting boy as if he was a particularly difficult puzzle. He changed tactic. “What do you want from your life, boy?”

Harvey could tell he didn’t particularly like being called ‘boy’, but regardless John perked up in his chair. “A family! And to go to space!” Clearly, young John had thought about this.

Unlike most of the adults Harvey had met that influenced John as a child, this man scoffed. “NASA only takes the best to space.”

The child’s face snapped into a familiar stubborn anger. “I’ll be the best then.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be the best. Crichtons are winners afterall.” Harvey wondered if Grandpa had just baited a child. John smoldered in his booth seat. “How about a piece of pie too? Get you all sugared up for your mother?”

Young John wasn’t interested. For a child, he looked eerily like his adulthood version, glowering with stubborn menace. “I’m going to space. Just you watch.”

“Take it easy, boy. I’m sure you will. Now pieces of pie don’t eat themselves. Hey Dana, can we get a slice of that key lime?”

And the memory dissolved into another.

John gusted in past the sliding doors and snapped his sunglasses off. Scribbles covered his arm from the day before. The facility was mostly unoccupied so early in the morning. It would soon be hotter than anything outside, but John was ready to spend most of the day and night inside, in climate control temperatures. He was building a spaceship after all, so it took his entire attention. Caroline had been calling, trying to coax him from the lab for weeks, but he was currently dating his ambition and women didn’t cut it. 

The space ship itself, Farscape One, was barely a box of scraps even several months into this time at IASA. A lot of the planning was still on blue prints and white boards. Today was special because he was beginning the wings today. With the frame mostly completed, it would at least look like a spaceship that was sky worthy.

This was a quiet memory. Harvey watched John work on building the ship’s wings. The frames were constructed slowly, with precision, and as more people arrived, those people were guided in the process. Then John left to pour over old equations, have a cup of coffee, and scribble more on scraps of paper and his limbs.

This memory was also long. It lasted an entire day, and towards the end, late into the evening, Farscape One was receiving its wings. There was a satisfaction heavy in the air, and there was John, obsessed with the progression of his project. His delight in this single step forward was palpable. Harvey was struggling to find another focal point away from the confident and transfixed man in this memory. He should’ve been bored out of his skull watching a whole day’s worth of work, but instead, he felt like a part of it. Like he had always been in this memory, driving John forward, equally eager to see the curve of the Earth. Even though he knew very well what was waiting for John moments into his first flight. He knew how desperate the man was to get back home afterward too. Dreams were like that, weren’t they? If one was lucky enough to achieve them, what comes after? Harvey thought about wormholes, and his own fearful misery motivating him to stop the oncoming war. Stopping the war was his whole life. For John, the only motivation he needed was the possibility of something else, something more. It was simple. Honestly pure. Harvey might have been envious.

John lit a welding torch without any proper protection on his arms, finished the connection with sparks snarling around him. Sweat and machine grease mixed on his skin. When the final weld was done, his small team clapped, hooted, shook hands, and toasted. The tiny ship was years from completion, but Farscape One had wings, and it was going to space. John was ecstatic. 

Harvey hungered.

He went back to the beach at night, and watched the scene on the bench again. A teenage John slipping down between Ethan’s legs to pull his pants lower, to suck him off. Ethan wincing with pleasure and surprise as he came. Their mutual departure from the lifeguard bench on the shore for the dune grass. Unlike the first time he’d visited this memory, Harvey followed after them.

They had tumbled into the sand only footsteps into the grass. Their mouths collided with either slow clumsiness or fast frantic need. Ethan had shrugged out of his sweatshirt, and was drawing John closer. He had brought a small jar of lubricant in his pocket which he was speedily applying underneath his own shorts. Ethan gasped lightly as his own probing and greased fingers pressed into his hole. When his fingers glided without resistance, he reached for John’s hips. John had been sucking a bruise into Ethan’s neck throughout his preparations. With the guidance now, he seemed to jolt alert, shiver his shorts lower, and press Ethan into the sand.

Meanwhile, Harvey thrummed like a live wire. He had wanted others in the past like this. It wasn’t unfamiliar to him. The subject matter had set him into an aroused panic, also not unfamiliar to him, but it was the covetous nature of his need that scared him. He breathed raggedly, very unlike him, and set his eyes on Ethan getting pushed into the sand, knees first. He wondered what this felt like for him. He closed his eyes wondering.

He opened them on his knees being pressed into the sand. Hands were gripping his skin, skin that was normally protected behind the layer of his cooling suit. Panic rose like bile, but he couldn’t struggle away. He was grafted into a scripted memory. Instead he moaned, and the body he possessed, thrust back onto John’s cock. There was a rocking pain that melted away with each push forward. He shuddered. There was a moment when he urgently wanted to scratch back out of this memory into the safety of his own self, but his frenzy was methodically dissolving in each deeper wave of euphoria. 

John grunted against his neck and gripped his hips. Harvey hissed in pleasure. Now desperate for release, he gripped Ethan’s, his own, hardness and brought himself to a swift, dizzying ejaculation. 

“Mmm.” John hummed against his shoulder bone. He was heavy pressing down on him, exhausted. Harvey rolled him off once he found the strength, and to Harvey’s surprise, hugged him tightly. Riding Ethan’s motions was deeply unpleasant, like being puppeted. He struggled again to mentally detach from this body. He couldn’t believe he was effectively cuddling someone, let alone John Crichton. Then there was a soft, pliant kiss, and Harvey was practically murderous. He centered his thinking, centered himself thinking about his own body separate from Ethan’s, and as if there had been no joining at all, was back in his body and suit sitting bewildered on the dunes.

“We should be getting back.” John said suddenly. Ethan frowned, and Harvey knew seeing it that Ethan was sure they’d never meet again. This had a mellowing effect on Harvey. He wanted to stay on this beach for awhile longer, and watch the waves, but the memory ended as John and Ethan wandered back to camp.

Harvey was spit out into another memory, but he had no interest in watching. There was a cushioned bench that he sprawled out on instead. He closed his eyes to focus entirely on what had happened on that beach. He was shaken, practically delirious. Or was it giddiness? He had wanted to watch the sweating, confident man fulfilling his life dream get fucked into the sand, but that wasn’t what happened at all. Even when it appeared that the copulation wasn’t going that direction, Harvey was still heartedly interested. Like summoning Ethan to the diner, he had thought that body swap into being. He covered his face with his hands and groaned. 

At least, when he masturbated, a bleeding, angry John hadn’t appeared. If he had a god, he’d have thanked them a hundredfold. There must be unknown rules here. This was the only positive. He’d have to be more careful in the future.

“You can’t put your feet up on the benches like that.”

Harvey glowered at the disturbance. It was a suited black woman with her locked hair pulled back. She had warm eyes, but a sharp jaw. 

“You can’t put your feet up on the benches.” She repeated a little sterner.

Harvey sat up, said nothing. Relocated his feet. 

“Thank you sir.” And she went back to stand in the archway of the room. Harvey hadn’t paid her much attention when he arrived. He thought this was a scripted memory, but now, looking around, it was actually a specific place. The room was grand. It had polished marble floors, and rich red walls with wood that rose halfway up. Two archways entered into the room from opposite directions that were decorated in molding and fretwork. On the walls hung massive paintings.

He called out to the woman waiting at the entry. “What is this place?”

The woman arched a brow. “Sir, if you have a question, why not come talk to me like I’m a person instead of shouting across the room? Sheesh.”

Harvey grit his teeth, but made his way closer. “Apologies,” she had a name tag that read, Nakita. “Nakita. What is this place?”

The woman fiddled with her cufflinks, tugged her sleeves down tightly. “This is the Art Museum. It’s where all the art he remembers goes. It doesn’t include music, movies, television, ads from the 80s, playboy pinups, you get me? It does include sculpture and historical artifacts though. The Greco Roman wing is particularly good, if I do say so myself. It’s a bit disorganized in here. He’s not very educated in painting.”

Harvey scanned the room. “Can you tell me about any of them?”

Her upper lip twitched. “So glad you asked. Let’s tour the room.”

They dallied to each picture. The first was a painting called Washington Crosses the Delaware. It had something to do with Nationalism, triumph, and revolution. Next was several cans of soup, which Harvey thought was simplistic and repetitive, but Nakita confirmed that was the point since it was accessible. Pop culture on Earth was apparently more valuable than elsewhere in the galaxy, he concluded. The next painting was of a group of women in an orchard. Despite the women being rendered with a glow, the painting itself was dark. Peacekeepers and Scarrans didn’t paint, and if they did, it would never look like this. Harvey made an agreeable sound accidentally.

“Like this one, huh? It’s called Primavera by Botticelli. No one is quite sure what it’s about, but the people are recognizable. In the middle is Venus, the goddess of beauty and love. There is Mercury there, and the three graces. The other side is the west wind stealing a nymph, which transforms her into Flora, the spring goddess. Because of all these allusions, most believe it’s about marriage or fertility.”

Harvey examined it closer, and at length, said. “It reminds me of my mother.”

The museum guard eyed him before smiling crookedly. “That is not what I expected you to say. You’re an interesting one. Definitely not from around here.” She brought him to a black and gray piece. “I wonder how you’ll feel about this one.” 

It was a scene of terror, but it was in a very different style than the previous ones. In one corner a woman wept over her dead child and in another, a man was screaming in a mouth of some teethed entity. Harvey was surprised. “John likes this piece?”

Nakita hummed. “It’s a powerful one. He saw it once in person, and it’s stuck with him. Can one like a piece of art about something so horrific? I wonder.”

Harvey wondered. “What is it of?”

“It’s called Guernica by Picasso. It was an innocent town that got bombed during World War 2. What do you think?”

The piece was massive, and it was as cold and dead as cement. It was refreshing to hear that Earth had wars. John couldn’t feign innocence of war forever when his own planet had apparently gone through not one but two planet-wide wars. As for the painting, “war is bloodier” was the simple answer.

“Ah. Well, maybe you’d prefer Goya. Or something completely different maybe? Monet? You’re a bit hard to read.” And Nakita escorted him around the museum. If there was anything impressive about Earth it was it’s endless variety. Humans weren’t depleted on creative vigor, but they were as brutal, insane, and particular as the rest of the galaxy, only on a smaller, isolated scale. He was able to ignore his trailing horror about the beach memory for a very long time wandering this massive structure of remembered art.

But he couldn’t spend forever there, and eventually whatever happened on the dunes caught up. Earth’s art was putting him in an introspective headspace, so he excused himself from Nakita, and went back to the memories.

DK clapped John on the shoulder in a familiar bar. From the flair on the walls, it appeared to be an Australian one. Sun beamed into the space. Harvey recognized it as the same bar Harvey first revealed himself to John back when he was still on the chip and hunting for wormhole secrets. The scarran interrogating him had almost turned his mind to soup, but John, with Harvey’s help, had shot the encroacher dead, and escaped back to Moya. It was strange to see the bar again as its own distinct memory. He wondered if eventually he would find it available to him like the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Currently, he thirsted for a buzz.

“How you doing champ?” DK slid a beer on the table to John.

“Why ask? You know she left me?” John didn’t drink. Instead he cleared the condensation with his thumb, looking miserable.

DK patted him again on the back. “Well you know what they say, ‘there are other fish in the sea’ and we’re in Australia and all. Have you seen the women around here? Meow.”

John rested his head in his hand. Sighed heavily. “I was gonna marry her. I had my mom’s ring and everything.”

“Oh.” To take up the pause, DK sipped his beer. “I didn’t know that. What exactly happened?”

“I was hoping she’d come here with me. We’d start a family while I worked on Farscape. Before I could ask, she got into Stanford for medical school. She said she didn’t want me to choose between her and this project, but she didn’t want to be long distance, so we should end it. Yaknow, stay friends but see other people. Do other things.” He sighed again, and finally took a large gulp of his beer.

“Maybe that’s for the best then? You never would have left this project. It’s your baby.” 

Harvey was more invested in how refreshing that beer looked in the sun.

“I loved her.” John’s eyes were red rimmed.

DK glanced at the beer and then at the full bar. “Hey, it’s Saturday, the middle of the day. You’re jetlagged. Miserable. Want to get drunk? It’s on me.”

John had slid down to rest his chin on the table. He waved his hand as if in agreement. 

“Hey Ronald, two tequila shots!” That must’ve been the barkeeper’s name because he nodded and poured two out. When DK went to get them he whispered covertly, “Just keep them coming.”

Harvey wanted to forget too. Scorpius was rarely drunk. Being drunk was a liability, but in John’s head, there was nothing that could crawl out of a back room with a gutting knife. At least nothing that John didn’t live beyond. Also the chances of DK and John falling into a romantic tryst tonight was, admittedly, not impossible but very unlikely. If anything John would become a crying sloppy mess, and DK would be numbed enough to be a good sport about it. So Harvey thought hard about DK knocking back shots and consoling John, and slipped into his body.

The puppeted feeling persisted, his actions were not his own, but at least he got absolutely smashed. They had a wild time out in Sydney from what he could remember, and in the morning, hungover at DK’s apartment, they had shell-filled scrambled eggs and bad coffee. Harvey was mentally shipwrecked, but kept making John laugh. They laughed together, and were ill until the medicine began working early afternoon. Then they went out to enjoy the sunlit Sunday beaches.

Feeling much better, Harvey sought other exciting memories. John had a wide selection afterall. Most of the fun ones were in college after he grew out of being a moody, rebellious teenager, and after he was legally allowed to drink. After a brief tour, he found himself in a strip club, feeling warmly buzzed, wearing a tuxedo he had seen Jack Crichton wearing at his daughter’s wedding.

Then there was a tug, a mental tug. It was from John Crichton, the conscious one, not the ones from memory. For once, Harvey was thrilled. Whatever, John was up to in the real world, he hadn’t been in trouble enough to need aid. Upon arrival, it was apparent that Moya was in real peril. In the few ahns between John letting Harvey out of the dumpster in the drive-in movie theater and now, the situation had devolved. No wonder he hadn’t cared that Harvey had gone rampaging through his memories unchecked, he had other things to deal with. He was trying to rally everyone’s spirits, a trait Harvey had already seen many times but had never complimented him on. His compliment wasn’t appreciated. 

While John was agreeable and conscientious with most of his friends, back in his mind, he immediately barrelled into restrictions and rules with Harvey. It was unfortunate John had such a hard time getting over torture. It likely came from the fact that he hadn’t previously been tortured.

Still for Harvey, it was nice seeing present John, even if he was in a debacle and in no mood to entertain Harvey’s baiting. However, Harvey conveniently had a different perspective. He quickly examined what happened in the last ahn in a microt and came to the obvious conclusion. John underestimated people. Given the tip, John vanished in a hurry.

Harvey was, once again, allowed free access to John’s mind. He was infinitely pleased.

And later, present John came back, weary, not elated with his continued survival. They were back in the drive-in movie theater, and Harvey was ready for part deux of the dumpster discussion. However, all John wanted to do was watch a movie called the Three Stooges, the movie he picked up on the alien device while in the wormhole. It was a comedy, but more topical to the moment then perhaps John had thought. Harvey couldn’t help but think of everyone that he had trampled underfoot for his own progress.

“Why is it always the gentle ones who pay the price for everyone else's ambition? Hmm?”

Like most of what Harvey said, John didn’t like this either. He raged. Wormhole technology would ruin many lives, this was only just a taste. Zhaan was one of the earliest sacrifices.

They were honestly more similar than Harvey initially thought, but he sank this idea deep into the dark recesses of himself. He would have time and time again to find it, unbury it, coax it into life. At the moment, he appreciated the presence of John. The John that was charting his own future at this very moment sitting right next to him, listening to him, sharing with him. It was like his heart beat slower. It was like he wanted to help John. It was like. He wanted.

John.


End file.
